Under the guidance of the legendary coach Knute Rockne, Notre Dame fielded a team of extraordinary talent. Their backfield, dubbed the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," was a force to be reckoned with. The quartet, consisting of Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley, Don Miller, and Elmer Layden, possessed a combination of speed, agility, and power that left opponents in awe. The backfield inspired legendary journalist Grantland Rice to pen the now famous column that started poetically with:

"Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down on the bewildering panorama spread on the green plain below.

A cyclone can't be snared. It may be surrounded, but somewhere it breaks through to keep on going. When the cyclone starts from South Bend, where the candle lights still gleam through the Indiana sycamores, those in the way must take to storm cellars at top speed.

Yesterday the cyclone struck again as Notre Dame beat the Army, 13 to 7, with a set of backfield stars that ripped and crashed through a strong Army defense with more speed and power than the warring cadets could meet." - Grantland Rice from "The Four Horsemen" for the New York Herald Tribune, 18 October 1924.

Learn more about the actual contest in our 1924 Notre Dame vs Army Game coverage.

ESPN in 2019 ranked it as the 17th Greatest College Game ever.